Wordless Wednesday (The first time but certainly not the last.)

Beach Trip II - Crescent

Labor Day was spent with the Saunders clan at Crescent beach.  We all piled into a three bedroom condo with these wild children and it was wonderful.  The kids played together great, the weather was perfect, and we basically had the beach and pool to ourselves.  I highly recommend the beach in May and September.  I can't stand feeling crowded on the beach and we didn't have to worry about the kids running back and forth between our tent and the water. 

I love that these little guys are just two months apart.  They are going to be great buddies.

We invested in some pink headphones for the long drive, totally worth it!

Bathing beauties!

Yaga, will  you jump the waves with us?

Ben longingly watched the girls build sandcastles from afar but he doesn't like to venture too far from mama.

I was amazed they wore their shades most of the day.

Shanna did their braids, oh how I wish I could do more than a pony tail.

His mouth could not have gotten any bigger.  He LOVED the water!

Looking so grown up.

 Everyone looking in the same direction + Yaga smiling = Beach Photo Miracle

 

I could eat them up.

Heading towards the ocean in his only crawling speed...WIDE OPEN.  See how much privacy we had?

No fear

We had the pool to ourselves any time of day. 

He was just as happy at the pool.

A little naked time before lunch.  I want to pinch him!

Our little family.

My two front teeth!

Beach Trips - HHI version

We spent Memorial Day with Dan's family at Hilton Head and Labor Day with my family at Crescent Beach in FL.  Such fun beach trips!!!  This post is going to have all of our Hilton Head pics.  We didn't have the best weather but it was a great trip.  We had a very relaxing time and even had a chance to go on a date, dinner and a movie.  We are getting so old because we made it to the restaurant in time for the early bird special and I think we were home by 9pm.  We put in an offer on our new house the day we left for the beach so we spent a good deal of time negotiating and waiting to hear news. We especially had a great time with our adorable nephews/cousins.  Thanks for a great vacation mimi and papa!

Sweet cousins

You can see here how windy/stormy it was!  My brother-in-law was taking a beating by the wind.  Several people thought he was dead and reported him to the local lifeguard.  One guy walked up to check on him and Matt told him that he was fine, just making "art".  He caused quite a stir.  Hilarious!

Another sand blasting photo.  He was able to get that much sand on him in about 20 minutes, so windy!

All the cousins together.

Love these smiles.

Ben discovering sand.

Such a happy boy

Why use your hands when you can shovel it in.

Trying out another color to see if it works better.

Proof that I was at the beach too.

Mimi and Dan with the kids

Papa trying not to get blown away.

More higher daddy.

We spent a lot of time at the pool which suited these kids just fine.  We even swam in the rain because vacations are too short to just stay in the room.

Wordless Wednesday (Ready for Game Day)

Gymnastics Girl

MB couldn't wait to get signed up for gymnastics in our new town.  It turns out that gymnastics is kind of a bid deal here, I had no idea.  I was talking to one of the other moms (who graciously told me not to take pictures with flashes as it could be dangerous for the kids practicing, that should have been my first clue) and she was telling me that her 12 year old practices five days a week for four hours a day.  It was all I could do not to go pull MB from the middle of her class.  Wow, that is hardcore and these people drive 1.5 hours round trip everyday to this gym.  We just want a short class where she can learn some new tricks and meet friends.  Note to self, try to get MB to switch to something else by age five.  :-)

She was in total amazement at all of the big girls and boys that were practicing.  There is so much to look at and she could have stayed there all night.

Getting instructions from her coach.  Can you believe all of these three year olds sat still on the line for more than 30 seconds?  I was impressed.

I knew that MB would go crazy over a real leotard but I looked on Amazon and those jokers are expensive.  (Side note, I never thought I would be searching online for a unitard!  That was a first.)  Anyway, I stumbled upon some at this awesome consignment sale that a local church puts on and bought her three for $6.  I was so pumped and couldn't wait to get home and show her.  I wish I would have waited until Dan got home so he could see the joy.  She yelled in a high pitch voice, "I get to be like the big girls!!!" and then did a happy dance.  Totally worth the $6!  We added some shorts so her daddy would be comfortable with her modesty level.  :-)  Doesn't she look so proud and happy?

Quick Recover

I have a zillion posts (yes, that many) rattling around in my brain and I don't know if they will all make it on here but I am going to try.  We have had major issues with our wireless router so we finally have another new one and it is working famously!  Post onward.

So, I have mentioned that we moved this summer and have a new place to call home.  Y'all, we absolutely love it!  The people who lived here before us were moving to their farm so they already had a furnished house and were not planning to move everything.  This worked out so well for us as our square footage almost doubled and we didn't want to have to buy a bunch of furniture right away.  We were able to pick and choose the items that they were planning to sell and work some of them into the price of the house.  It was perfect!  Neither one of us had to move the furniture and bam, we had a dining room set, leather couch, big screen TV and a hot tub plus a few other goodies!  The dining room was a little too formal for me (I'm more of a rustic farm table kind of girl) and it wasn't something that I would have picked out but it was too good of a deal to pass up and I thought I could change the look by swapping out the fabric.  I really think it helped give the room a more casual feel.  This project was done on day four of moving into our house.  I was afraid to attempt this alone so I rushed to do it while we had family in town helping us get settled (I'm so thankful!).  So, hear is a peak into phase one of the makeover.  I feel so grown up having a real dining room.  It's a first for us!

The before.  The fabric had a shine to it and said way too fancy for this messy family.

The table/chairs before they were dressed down.  We also got the buffet from them.  They hold some of my plates from Mexico so nicely!

The old chair practically begging for its makeover.  Such a great improvement!

I love the new fabric!  It took some serious concentration to make sure that each chair had the same pattern on it.

They are all newly dressed and tucked under for safety from sticky fingers and goldfish paste.

We just got our rug back from a one month stint at the cleaners (AKA vacation at the spa) and we haven't had a chance to roll it out yet.  That rug is going to be so excited that we have chosen a less traveled space for it to rest in.  It worked overtime in our other house as it was in our living room-snack area-playroom all in one space.  We have plans to put picture molding on the bottom of the room and paint the  space below the chair rail white.  Those are our Jamaican women dancing in the background, a piece we bought on our honeymoon.  Most all of the rooms in the house have plantation shudders and we love them.  Phase one complete and hopefully phase two will be complete in the next year or so.  Well, the rug should be rolled out earlier than a year at least.